wat0n wrote:@Atlantis what you are saying basically is that populists are gonna be populists. That's true indeed and is probably one of the predictors (although not a perfect one - you could also check out Nayib Bukele in El Salvador for a right wing populist that has been able to fend corona off), but what does it have to do with gender? Do you have anything to say about Belgium, which is currently being led by a woman? If you want we can broaden the analysis to including feminists into the fray, and discuss Spain's approach in this matter (which happens to be headed by another populist government that regards itself as a feminist one).
As I said, type of leadership is important, but there are other factors determining the severity of the pandemic.
Since we seem to agree that populist leadership aggravates the situation, we may also agree that it's hard to imagine female populists of the type of Trump. It's perhaps not impossible, but highly unlikely.
Secondly, as I also already mentioned, it's not just the female leader herself that makes a difference, but the type of diverse society that tends to vote for female leaders and that is less likely to vote for the populist leader offering simple but false solution.
Even though the number of female leaders doing well is remarkable, I'm sure there are exceptions to the rule. I closely followed the spread of the virus in a number of countries, but Belgium was a bit of a black hole to me. So I can't offer any specific reasons for the size of the outbreak. Generally speaking, Belgium has been a bit of a failed country for a long time, in which the rival administrations of the two big ethnic groups have problems cooperating. That probably contributed to the fact that Belgium was more affected by Islamist terror than other countries, and that may also have resulted in a less than optimal Covid-19 response.
I guess you aren't really serious about Spain. Italy has been mired by populist politics for decades, but not Spain. Countries like Spain, Portugal and Germany, where a totalitarian police state is still in the living memory, were particularly reluctant to introduce measures limiting personal freedoms, like the right of assembly. In Spain, that has led to a number of super-spreader events.
I know that the Anglos here are not interested in the science (@The Sabbaticus, it’s obvious you don't know what you are talking about); however, in this context it should be noted that latest scientific data suggests that most people don't transmit the virus and that most infections are due to super-spreader events. This is actually good news since it means that we can control the pandemic by learning to control a relatively small number of super-spreader events.